Valediction
by Dancing Feather
Summary: A Mushishi is a Mushi master, but master is a term that must be used lightly in this field. :oneshot: Please be careful and hold your blood close, I would be sad if someone stole it.


"Mushishi belongs to Urushibara Yuki. Spelling and grammatical errors want to be corrected. Bad story telling and OOC-ness also want to be fixed." I say closing my eyes before placing bloodsucking starfish on top of them.

"AHHH!"

* * *

**Valediction, Always**

_A Mushishi is a Mushi master. But master is a term used lightly in this field._

"Thank- thank you sir!" It was an odd sight, seeing a child covered in blood to be shaking so violently in delight. Ginko couldn't help but place his hand on the girl's head to calm her. "Oh, thank you! Thank you!" Her mother knelt down and hugged her tightly, weeping into her back.

"Thank the Gods that thing is dead!"

Ginko kept silent as his hand retreated from the girl who now had the comfort of her mother. He was not fond of lying, it felt bitter, as if lying had a taste. But he held the scroll that held the Mushi tightly in his left hand. It was best these people did not know what happened in the shed. If anything, there would be unnecessary panic, and more blood. Turing to leave, he felt a tug at his pants' leg.

"Please, let us make a meal for you." The woman sniffed. "I must pay back in some way."

"Yes, please!" The girl gave a light bow, clutching her hands together.

"I'm very sorry, but I must be going." He didn't want to sound rude, but thankfully the urgency in his voice told the woman to release him.

"You will not stay?" She said quietly, pulling back.

"It was by my coming here this thing came," he gave them two bows, one for goodbye and one for apologies, "it is best I leave as soon as possible."

_Even when crossing paths with a well documented Mushi, there is no guarantee for it to follow the words of some humans' writings._

"What is the matter with you?" He growled the scroll which now laid in his breast pocket.

It did not reply.

_If a Mushi can read human, then it guarantees they will be all the more unpredictable. Thankfully, they are not a common acquaintance._

"I thought you said you wanted to live in a small village, that you wouldn't harm anyone!" He grunted as he lifted himself into a hole on a cliff side. "I thought you fed on sunlight." He sighed as he sat against the wall. Hearing the rain catch up to him, he found himself asking a question he never asked anyone- or anything before. "What do you want of me?" He whispered.

Again, the scroll stayed silent.

_Not everything is kind enough to give warning before it's strike. When given such a gracious offer, one should take advantage of it._

"Welcome back! Welcome back!" Ginko heard somewhere in the house he was walking towards.

"Greetings again, doctor." He called to the inside. There were very few places Ginko returned to, and even fewer he cared to. He couldn't help but smile as he saw his friend fighting to open the old sliding door.

"Abandon those formalities!" Adashino gasped in the small slip Ginko could see through. "Curse this old thing!" If he were saying it more to himself or to the door in particular, Ginko wasn't sure. So he stayed quiet and watched his friend struggle. After a few moments, when Ginko finally decided it would be best to help, Adashino gave up and just punched a hole in the rice paper. "What did you bring this time?" He grinned as he ripped a hole large enough for Ginko to step through.

"But Adashino, your door-" Ginko blinked at the paper littering the porch.

"Perish the thought," he waved him in, "the damned thing needed to be replaced anyways."

"How will you get a carpenter at this hour?"

"Hour?" He rose an eyebrow. "It's the afternoon."

"It will be raining within half an hour." Ginko replied as Adashino stared at him. To prove his point, he pointed behind him. Which Adashino's eyes followed to the darker grey sky in the green mountains.

"Bugger." Ginko sighed, but couldn't help a chuckle passing through either. Being pulled through the door, Adashino began to gossip of the latest things his village has gone through. "-and if you don't mind, help me patch this up." He gestured at what was left of the door.

"With what?"

"Whatever will block the rain and winds." He said as if it were plainly obvious. "I'm not asking for a professional job here, just something to tied over until I get a carpenter."

"Alright." He said as he placed his luggage down beside the table where they always conversed. It was quiet as they searched the house, with a few jabbing jokes tossed here and there.

"A relative gave me this cloth." Adashino pulled the fabric out of the closet and began to unfold it, showing Ginko the pale and bright yellow stripes. "She said it was my color." The tone was given with mock nausea.

"Let me guess, you don't like it?" He gave a smirk.

"Have you seen this woman?" Adashino rolled his eyes. "She has no taste."

"I guess we found our door."

For a long time, Ginko never knew what it was like to have a home. To have a place to return to everyday, a familiar place of comfort. While he certainly didn't return everyday, he knew that this was the closest to having one. Adashino certainly wouldn't care if he stayed long enough for the entire place to be overrun by Mushi. For a doctor, Ginko thought, he was quite careless.

_Second chances are a rare occurrence._

With the fabric tacked up over the broken door, Adashino brought Ginko over to the old table were they preformed every meeting. "Humming chopsticks?" Ginko handed over to him what looked like plain wooden ones. They looked worn, but nothing special. But he trusted Ginko's word that unseen to his eyes to Ginko's one, there was a curling, twisting bright blue paint over a gleaming black surface.

"They are useless for any eating purposes." He explained as Adashino placed the pair to his ears. "They feed on the nutrients of whatever you pick up with them, turning it into something less than fertilized dirt."

"Can I hear them?" He asked hopefully.

"Place them near a fresh bowl of cooked rice, and even a deaf person can hear them." The doctor felt his eyes widen in excitement. Ginko smirked as he saw Adashino's right hand unconsciously go up to his face to prevent his monocle from falling. "The sound is really obnoxious." Ginko added, but that fact was completely ignored by the other.

"It is about dinner time, isn't it?" Adashino asked no one in particular as he leapt from the table. "If not, let's have a snack; I must hear these chopsticks sing!" He laughed all the way to the kitchen. Ginko snickered as well but inwardly flinched, he wasn't kidding about the sound, it was really annoying.

The noise that rang from it reminded him of something starving.

_Third chances, are even slimmer still._

As Ginko organized his things for the night's stay, he noticed the emptiness of one certain coat pocket. Trying not to panic, he called out to Adashino in the kitchen, "Have you seen a small scroll wrapped in a red string?" He double checked his other pockets, just to make sure. Still not finding it, he tossed his coat back at the ground.

"Have I seen a-? Do you remember any of your visits here?" Adashino walked out of the kitchen to give Ginko a stern look. "I've got countless scrolls going by that definition."

"It's no more than twenty centimeters long." Ginko gave a size definition with his hands as he started to search the ceiling.

"That short, eh?" Following his frustrated friend's motions, he too looked up.

"The string was cut from a bamboo rope. It may be floating around somewhere..."

"Now _that_ narrows it down greatly." Adashino wiped his hands with a towel before tossing it aside. "Let's find this thing!"

_With those odds, how many chances will you take?_

There was an odd fear that began bubbling up as Ginko searched for the scroll. The memories of the strangely shaped, white opaqued Mushi grabbing a child and pinning it down. It's many and long thin arms wrapping around her, sapping the child of all of her color, turning itself into a soft pink. He heard the sound again, humming.

"Ginko!"

As Adashino pointed to the scroll, Ginko saw a white, slimy goo covering over it. Grabbing a new scroll from his pocket, he pushed one of it's free arms aside. With his other hand, he took the butterfly net from Adashino and pinned the Mushi to the wooden floor.

"How... bizarre." Adashino looked down, watching as Ginko pushed and pulled at invisible things while kneeling near the quivering scroll. "What kind of Mushi is that?"

"I don't know." Ginko growled as he opened the new scroll and pushed it on top of the Mushi. One arm, which had formed back into it's original state, pushed it's very human like hand on Ginko's forehead. Other limbs not so well formed, smacked and shoved Ginko's arms and chest. He stiffened, ready to feel whatever it felt like to have the life sucked out of him but it did not come. "All I know is that it's dangerous and powerful, and I'm not the right Mushishi to handle it." Confidence returning, he grabbed what arms he could with his left hand while his right unrolled the scroll.

"You?" Adashino blinked. "But aren't you one of the best?"

"For sealing, no." He grunted as the pushing hand on his face began to melt to a transparent blob. Oddly, transparent enough to see through. "I specialize in cohabiting and this Mushi-" he gave a sigh of relief as the rest of the Mushi was beginning to relax, it's arms slumping to the floor, "refuses to cooperate." Hearing a much louder thud, Ginko gave a glance behind him.

"I'm sorry," Adashino gasped, limply sitting up. "I don't know what came over me."

"It's this Mushi." Ginko glared at the creature who was now soaking into the new scroll at a faster rate. "It feeds on anything that has life force, but it seems to have trouble digesting anything inanimate."

"_You would have me starve?"_ the scroll whispered, _"I thought we were friends..."_ Ginko ignored it.

"Are you suggesting I stay put then?" Adashino chuckled. "Like a tree?" He wiggled the toes on his left foot, trying to return the feeling lost to them. "What kind of Mushi is it?" Ginko scowled, the fool was still in good humor.

"I don't know." He warned, hoping the tone would tell Adashino to keep his paws off of it but seeing how much the Mushi powers had paled his friend, his next words were much softer. "I need to take it to a friend of mine who is better at sealing them than me. It's best if I leave now."

"What?" Adashino gasped. Ginko turned away while pulling out a long, red string. He then began to wildly wrap it around the scroll. _'Is the Mushi really that powerful? Or am I a lousy sealer?'_

"Don't argue with me," Ginko tied the string as tightly as it would let him. "I am not going to risk-"

"No, don't!" Ginko grabbed the wall to brace himself against Adashino's tackle to his leg. "You just got here..." he murmured to Ginko's leg, "you just got here..."

_After all, no life is equal._

"...it wasn't too bad, I managed to stitch the skin together. He didn't even cry! He is a brave boy..."

The food was burnt, but still worth eating. Adashino offered what he could scrape out of the pot. He wanted to bring back the good atmosphere, but it seemed to have been sacrificed from when he persuaded Ginko from leaving.

"Ginko?" Adashino frowned. He knew he occasionally prattled on, but this time Ginko wasn't even trying to hide his disinterest.

"I thought it was a Megane." The other finally said. "A Mushi that lives in the eye of it's host and feeds on the sunlight, causing the host to become blind, but still be aware of their surroundings by sound."

"Really?"

"But it wasn't that at all." His grip tightened on the chopsticks. "I should've known better." A pause, but Adashino kept silent. "Megane are shy, this one came straight to me." Setting the chopsticks aside, his eye narrowed on Adashino. "I shouldn't stay here, I don't know what I have."

_What will you do, Mushishi?_

There was a lone wax candle between their beds. For Adashino, all he saw was the dancing shadows. For Ginko, there was a disturbing lack of Mushi that should have been gathering at his presences. A few green specks flickered in and out the walls, enlarge looking pollen balls bouncing off of nothing, but the majority of the ecosystem that lives here was gone.

Unbalance was dangerous.

"You know Ginko, some animals have the appearance of far more dangerous creatures to confuse their predators." Adashino rubbed his stressed eye, as without the monocle it took more energy to focus. "It seems this one decided to look like prey to fool it's food."

"We are it's food."

"Pardon?" Ginko grabbed his arm and held it close to his face.

"You're the doctor, tell me what's wrong."

"I've seem to become quite pale." Adashino shut his right eye to focus more.

"Tired?" He tightened his grip on the arm.

"Well, look at the time!" Adashino bit his lower lip, not wishing to admit it stung. "Who wouldn't be tired?"

"As soon as the sun rises," he dropped the arm, returning his own under the sheets, "I'm leaving."

"Last time you promised you could stay for at least three days-"

"Any longer and this Mushi could kill you." He didn't mean to bite it out, but Ginko was scared. He had no notes on this Mushi. He only leaned into Adashino's pleas because it was too dark to travel. There was no say to what could happen next, and he rather it was him verses it in an isolated area. No, he didn't want to leave so early from a familiar place, but he rather it stayed safe.

For next time.

"I'm sorry," Ginko closed his eyes as he pinched the bridge of his nose, "I wish I could stay longer-"

"No, no that's all right." Adashino nodded as he looked up towards the ceiling. "You are the professional in this field, I should know better than to argue with you."

"To make up for the sudden disappearance, would you like the humming chopsticks?"

"Would I?" Adashino smiled. "I'd love to. How much should I pay you for them?"

"The pay would be taking them away, they are a nuisance to carry."

"Surely you wouldn't mind extra change." Ginko tried to ignore the hand that brushed against his ear.

"No, I wouldn't." But he found himself leaning into it.

It had been a long time.

Adashino gave a soft chuckle as he stroked Ginko's cheek.

_What sort of master do you think you are?_

Ginko was already gone when he opened his eyes. His bed rolled and tucked back in it's respective spot. Getting breakfast ready, he noticed the chopsticks still sitting at the table. Pulling the parchment that laid underneath he read the note.

"Took the ugly cloth as payment?" He grinned as he looked over to the broken door. "Oh, Ginko..." Setting down a bowl of rice, he nudged it near the chopsticks. The sound came slowly, but the chattering steadily became faster and louder.

"Now, this is a depressing sound."

_Oh, woe..._

He was in the mountain side now. Turning, he could just see the house. "I could say goodbye to everyone else forever, but not to you."

The pocket shivered as the scroll vibrated, almost as if it were in a fit of laughter.

And the clouds still followed.

_What it takes to become a true Mushishi... Is and by all means, impossible._


End file.
